Question

I’ve been creating a nice T4 template for a repository pattern for my entities. Instead of manually parsing the xml in the edmx file I use the EdmItemCollection to create a object graph presentation for the conceptual model.

I’ve been able to get a lot of information out of this model. But I cant find where to locate the Getter and Setter access modifiers. They are present in the CSDL part of the edmx file.

Example:

<Property Name='CustomerID' Type='String' Nullable='false' MaxLength='5' Unicode='true' FixedLength='true'      a:SetterAccess='Public' xmlns:a='http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2006/04/codegeneration' /> 

Where in the object graph should I look for this information?

Here is an example of how I parse the object tree.

EdmItemCollection edmItems = new EdmItemCollection(new XmlReader[] { csdlReader }); var ownEntities = from item in edmItems                   where item.BuiltInTypeKind == BuiltInTypeKind.EntityType                   select item as EntityTypeBase;  Entities = (from ent in ownEntities // Entities is a property, therefore no declaration             select new Entity             {                 Name = ent.Name,                 SetName = (from entSet in entityContainer.BaseEntitySets                            where (entSet.ElementType == ent) || (ent.BaseType != null && (entSet.ElementType.FullName.Equals(ent.BaseType.FullName)))                            select entSet.Name).FirstOrDefault(),                 Keys = (from keys in ent.KeyMembers                         select new Entity.Member                         {                             Name = keys.Name,                             Type = keys.TypeUsage.EdmType.Name                          }).ToList(),                 Properties = (from prop in ent.Members                               select new Entity.Member                               {                                   Name = prop.Name,                                   Type = prop.TypeUsage.EdmType.Name,                                   IsCollection = prop.TypeUsage.EdmType.BuiltInTypeKind == BuiltInTypeKind.CollectionType                               }).ToList()             }).ToList(); 

I hope it’s clear in which direction I’m going.

After a lot of reflectoring trough the code of the EdmItemCollection that it doesn’t load the http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2006/04/codegeneration schema, so it just ignores those properties.

But I’m hoping somebody can help me find out how to locate this information?

Answer 1

Thanks to Noam Ben-Ami from Microsoft who pointed me to the blog post Annotations in CSDL I’m able to answered my own question.

Everything which is not directly presented in the Object Model from the Edm types can still be found in the MetadataProperties (which contains every xml property of the element, even the ones which are represented as typed properties).

I just have to look for a MetadataProperty which name begins with ‘http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2006/04/codegeneration:’ and I’ve found it.

To answer my code example:

String codeGenerationXmlns = 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2006/04/codegeneration'; EdmItemCollection edmItems = new EdmItemCollection(new XmlReader[] { csdlReader }); var ownEntities = from item in edmItems                   where item.BuiltInTypeKind == BuiltInTypeKind.EntityType                   select item as EntityTypeBase; var entityContainer = (from item in edmItems                        where item.BuiltInTypeKind == BuiltInTypeKind.EntityContainer                        select item as EntityContainer).FirstOrDefault(); Entities = (from ent in ownEntities             select new Entity             {                 Name = ent.Name,                 SetName = (from entSet in entityContainer.BaseEntitySets                            where (entSet.ElementType == ent) || (ent.BaseType != null && (entSet.ElementType.FullName.Equals(ent.BaseType.FullName)))                            select entSet.Name).FirstOrDefault(),                 IsPublic = ((from metaProps in ent.MetadataProperties                              where metaProps.Name.Equals(codeGenerationXmlns + ':TypeAccess')                              select metaProps.Value).FirstOrDefault() ?? 'Public').Equals('Public'),                 Keys = (from keys in ent.KeyMembers                         select new Entity.Member                         {                             Name = keys.Name,                             Type = keys.TypeUsage.EdmType.Name                         }).ToList(),                 Properties = (from prop in ent.Members                               select new Entity.Member                               {                                   Name = prop.Name,                                   Type = prop.TypeUsage.EdmType.Name,                                   IsCollection = prop.TypeUsage.EdmType.BuiltInTypeKind == BuiltInTypeKind.CollectionType,                                   PrivateGetter = ((from metaProps in prop.MetadataProperties                                                     where metaProps.Name.Equals(codeGenerationXmlns + ':GetterAccess')                                                     select metaProps.Value).FirstOrDefault() ?? 'Public').Equals('Private'),                                   PrivateSetter = ((from metaProps in prop.MetadataProperties                                                     where metaProps.Name.Equals(codeGenerationXmlns + ':SetterAccess')                                                     select metaProps.Value).FirstOrDefault() ?? 'Public').Equals('Private'),                               }).ToList()             }).ToList();